Every morning, we begin our day by thanking God for another day of life. We say Modeh ani l’fanecha, thank you God for restoring my soul to me. Thank you for the precious opportunity to live a worthy life, a life of purpose, a life of fulfillment.
But how many of us take our lives for granted? We wake up and go about our daily business without giving a second thought to the priceless gift that is our lives. We don’t realize how fortunate we are to be able to enjoy another day in our world.
Sadly, for many of us, it takes some catastrophic event to shake us from our sense of complacency. Perhaps it is the onset of an illness, or the loss of employment, or God forbid, the death of a loved one. Or perhaps, on a more global level, it is a mass shooting, a deadly flood or some other natural disaster.
My wife Randi and I had a Modeh ani l’fanecha moment last week when we were vacationing near San Diego. We were at South Ponto Beach in Encinitas last Friday, not more than five hundred yards or so from the site of the cliff collapse which tragically took the lives of three women. We had walked that section of the beach less than an hour beforehand. Though we did not witness the collapse, we saw firsthand the aftermath: beach patrol and emergency vehicles racing along the shoreline to the scene of the collapse; paramedics performing cpr on one of the victims; medevac helicopters and more.
We were both shaken when we realized the extent of what had happened. As the story developed and we learned more details, we realized with horror that it very well could have been us who were the victims of that horrific tragedy.
It was a wake-up call for both of us. I will be the first to admit that too often, I take life for granted. Those few words, modeh ani l’fanecha, which only take a few seconds to recite, I leave unsaid.
And yet, life is too precious, and those few words too important to ignore.
Let’s all agree that it shouldn’t take a life-shattering event to make us appreciate our own lives, and let’s all resolve to be more thankful.